Text Concatenation Operator: &

Then syntax

A & B

evaluates A and B, coerces their element values to text, and concatenates the result.

When concatenating numeric values to text, a number format is required to determine how the numbers should be rendered as text, what precision should be depicted, etc. The number format for the variable or User-Defined Function being evaluated is used.

Examples

'Hello' & ' ' & 'world' → 'Hello world'

5 & 2 → '52'

['a','b'] & 'c' → ['ac','bc']

Tips and Tricks

The need to coerce numbers to text using a particular format often arises. Instead of having to rely on setting the number format for the variable that you are defining for this purpose, a common technique is to create a User-Defined Function to perform the particular coercion of interest. Then in your definition, you just call that function.

For example, create the User-defined function:

Function ToCurrencyText(x) := "" & x

Then while viewing the object window for ToCurrencyText, select Number Format... (Ctrl+B) and set to Fixed Point, Showing Currency, two digits, and thousand separators.

With that function defined, elsewhere you can use the function to convert numeric values to currency text:

ToCurrencyText(Revenue)

See Also

• JoinText